Teen Pilot Was On A Suicide Mission

January 7, 2002|By Jason Garcia Florida Correspondent and Jon Steinman and Susan Jacobson and Mark Pino of the Orlando Sentinel staff contributed to this report.

TAMPA — Charles Bishop, the 15-year-old student pilot who crashed a four-seat Cessna 172R into the downtown Bank of America building here Saturday, was on a suicide mission to show his support for Osama bin Laden and the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, authorities said.

"He was acting out his sympathy for Osama bin Laden," Tampa Police Chief Bennie Holder said Sunday, citing a note police found in Bishop's pocket. "He expressed support for what happened on 9-11."

No one else was hurt by Bishop's suicide flight, which evoked chilling memories of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Holder said Bishop, who lived 25 miles northwest in Palm Harbor, made it clear in his handwritten note that he was acting alone and that he had no intention of hurting anyone but himself. Holder declined to elaborate.

"Bishop can best be described as a young man who had very few friends and was very much a loner," Holder said. "From his actions, we can assume he was a very troubled young man."

Florida Department of Law Enforcement Director Jim Sewell went further, saying Bishop committed a "terrorist act" when he crashed the plane into the tower's 28th floor.

However, Sewell said, "I'm not convinced he was a terrorist. He was a 15-year-old kid who was really screwed up."

National Transportation Safety Board inspector Butch Wilson said Bishop was in the air for nine to 12 minutes.

The freshman at East Lake High School stole the plane and took off from St. Petersburg-Clearwater International Airport. His flight instructor had told him only to make routine pre-flight preparations.

Bishop's flight raised security concerns about MacDill Air Force Base, the military's headquarters for the war in Afghanistan.

Alerts activated

Bishop entered restricted air space shortly after taking off. Wilson said he was in MacDill's airspace for about a minute and began descending while above the base.

A nearby U.S. Coast Guard helicopter conducting a routine Homeland Defense sweep of the area was contacted. The teen's flight triggered alerts in Tallahassee, Washington and at NORAD, but no other measures were taken at the base.

Holder said the pilot of the unarmed helicopter tried to radio Bishop and made hand signals motioning him to land, which Bishop ignored.

There was very little else the pilot could do, said Larry Buynak, a retired military helicopter pilot.

"In an open area, you can get in front of them and try and direct them where you want," said Buynak, a retired U. S. Marine Corps major who won three medals during the Gulf War for his combat flying. "But over a busy area, that can be risky, too."

Actually making contact with another aircraft while aloft, however, borders on the suicidal, said Buynak, who now is a pilot with the Albuquerque Police Department

"Aircraft just bumping a little, like a fender bender on the ground, can send an aircraft out of control," he said. "And no one wants to do that over a populated area."

Two F-15s were scrambled from Homestead Air Reserve Base near Miami, about 200 miles away, but they did not reach Tampa before the crash.

The planes at Homestead were closest to Tampa, said Capt. Richard E. Bittner, a spokesman for the Jacksonville-based 125th Fighter Wing of the Florida Air National Guard, which keeps fighter jets in both Homestead and Jacksonville.

"They don't have fighters at MacDill, only tankers," Bittner said. He declined to say how long it took the pair of jets to reach Tampa.

"Unfortunately, there just wasn't enough time," Wilson said.

"You can't protect people from someone who is bound and determined to do themselves in."

But Lt. Col. Rich McClain, an officer at MacDill, said the base did not raise serious alarms, because the information they received from air traffic controllers -- a 15-year-old at the helm of a single-engine plane -- was not enough to concern them. But he refused to comment on any security measures MacDill might have used.

"We didn't view him as a threat," McClain said. "MacDill did nothing, so to speak, to stop that airplane."

Still, Sewell said authorities had much to learn from the accident, from improving response times to how to make it more difficult for someone to commandeer a plane.

"We're still learning," he said. "I think we can significantly reduce the opportunity for it to happen."

National Aviation Academy owner Robert Cooper said the school has been in business since 1968 and has 13 airplanes and 10 instructors. The Cessna 172 that Bishop was flying was a 1999 model worth about $180,000, he said.

"Somebody stole my airplane and did a terrible thing with it," he said. "This wasn't a security issue. It wasn't a terrorism thing though I know that's an emotional hot topic right now. A distraught 15-year-old stole the plane without permission and flew it into the side of a building."

It's not surprising that Bishop was able to take off and fly the plane, Cooper said.